Chapter 3 offers the most comprehensive and critical review to date of legal scholarship and its recent contributions to the understanding and analysis of cyber conflict. The principal focus is the ...
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Chapter 3 offers the most comprehensive and critical review to date of legal scholarship and its recent contributions to the understanding and analysis of cyber conflict. The principal focus is the contents and findings of an International Group of Experts who collaborated on composing the Tallinn Manual on the international law of armed conflict that might be said to pertain to cyber conflict specifically. Discusses the canons of “good governance,” and the limits of normativity or normative force of legal regimes that fail to follow these canons. Describes the disappointing failure of the Tallinn Manual and the process by which it was compiled to adhere to these canons, leading to its disappointing failure to achieve widespread recognition outside of the NATO countries from whom the panel of experts was exclusively drawn.Less

The Tallinn Manual : International Law in the Aftermath of Estonia

George Lucas

Published in print: 2017-01-26

Chapter 3 offers the most comprehensive and critical review to date of legal scholarship and its recent contributions to the understanding and analysis of cyber conflict. The principal focus is the contents and findings of an International Group of Experts who collaborated on composing the Tallinn Manual on the international law of armed conflict that might be said to pertain to cyber conflict specifically. Discusses the canons of “good governance,” and the limits of normativity or normative force of legal regimes that fail to follow these canons. Describes the disappointing failure of the Tallinn Manual and the process by which it was compiled to adhere to these canons, leading to its disappointing failure to achieve widespread recognition outside of the NATO countries from whom the panel of experts was exclusively drawn.

This chapter explores the nature, formation, and evolution of legal norms pertaining to cyberactivities in both the jus in bello and jus ad bellum. It discusses how such norms emerge and develop ...
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This chapter explores the nature, formation, and evolution of legal norms pertaining to cyberactivities in both the jus in bello and jus ad bellum. It discusses how such norms emerge and develop through time. Each source of law is analyzed separately, first in the abstract, and then in its cyberconflict context. The chapter does not dispute the applicability of the precyber-era international law to cyberconflict. As such, its underlying postulate is that cyberconflict is no less subject to extant international legal norms than other forms of conflict. However, the chapter demonstrates that the cybercontext presents unique challenges to the application of existing norms and emergence of new ones. With regard to the latter, the chapter doubts the prospect that new treaties will be concluded or new customary law norms will soon crystallize to govern cyberactivities. Instead, the application and interpretative evolution of existing international law is the most likely near-term prospect.Less

The Emergence of International Legal Norms for Cyberconflict

Michael N. SchmittLiis Vihul

Published in print: 2016-03-01

This chapter explores the nature, formation, and evolution of legal norms pertaining to cyberactivities in both the jus in bello and jus ad bellum. It discusses how such norms emerge and develop through time. Each source of law is analyzed separately, first in the abstract, and then in its cyberconflict context. The chapter does not dispute the applicability of the precyber-era international law to cyberconflict. As such, its underlying postulate is that cyberconflict is no less subject to extant international legal norms than other forms of conflict. However, the chapter demonstrates that the cybercontext presents unique challenges to the application of existing norms and emergence of new ones. With regard to the latter, the chapter doubts the prospect that new treaties will be concluded or new customary law norms will soon crystallize to govern cyberactivities. Instead, the application and interpretative evolution of existing international law is the most likely near-term prospect.

We truly live in a “postcyber” moment, one in which the era of cyberwarfare is upon us, and there is no going back. Thus, we should not ignore the other sense of “postcyber”: what political ...
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We truly live in a “postcyber” moment, one in which the era of cyberwarfare is upon us, and there is no going back. Thus, we should not ignore the other sense of “postcyber”: what political communities ought to do in the wake of a severe cyberstrike or, even more so, in the wake of a substantial cyberwar. This chapter is devoted to advancing our understanding of precisely this subject. It tries to do so in two ways: first by discussing the jus post bellum (“justice after war”) project in general terms, and then by applying its insights specifically to instances of cyberwarfare. Using existing theories of postwar justice, plus the principles of occupation law and the Tallinn Manual on cyberconflict, the abstract suggests that a well-grounded conclusion to a serious cyberstrike or cyberwar ought to include adherence to at least seven general principles, which we might label the “Postcyber Seven.”Less

Postcyber : Dealing with the Aftermath of Cyberattacks

Brian Orend

Published in print: 2016-03-01

We truly live in a “postcyber” moment, one in which the era of cyberwarfare is upon us, and there is no going back. Thus, we should not ignore the other sense of “postcyber”: what political communities ought to do in the wake of a severe cyberstrike or, even more so, in the wake of a substantial cyberwar. This chapter is devoted to advancing our understanding of precisely this subject. It tries to do so in two ways: first by discussing the jus post bellum (“justice after war”) project in general terms, and then by applying its insights specifically to instances of cyberwarfare. Using existing theories of postwar justice, plus the principles of occupation law and the Tallinn Manual on cyberconflict, the abstract suggests that a well-grounded conclusion to a serious cyberstrike or cyberwar ought to include adherence to at least seven general principles, which we might label the “Postcyber Seven.”